


Meaning of Life

by starkeeper



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Dealing With Loss, Depression, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 01:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15109274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkeeper/pseuds/starkeeper
Summary: Reid deals with Meaves death in his very own way.





	Meaning of Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GuileandGall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileandGall/gifts).
  * A translation of [Ein Sinn, nicht mehr](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/393779) by starkeeper. 



> I finally sat down and translated (my own) this story from German to English. You can read it here: https://www.fanfiktion.de/s/53fb62730001e437b64a0ab/1/Ein-Sinn-nicht-mehr  
> I tried my best in English but this is not beta read, so please excuse and grammatical mistakes in here. I hope you enjoy. :)

** Meaning of life **

 

Twelve days, nine hours and forty seven seconds.

That much time had passed since Maeves death.

Nine days, five hours and fourteen Minutes since her funeral. Which took sixty two minutes. Sixty two minutes in which Maeves mum lost the battle against the tears four times. Sixty two minutes, that was three thousand seven hundred twenty seconds in which he himself hadn’t shared a single tear.

Since that day he had gotten seven gift baskets from Garcia. Two had been taken by his neighbor but he didn’t care. He had ignored twenty three calls from her, each one in the morning and one at night, plus additional thirty four text messages, whenever something crossed her mind that might be of interest for him and most likely also when it wasn’t. Nine messages from Morgan on his answering message, four from JJ. Additional five visits from her that he had ultimately ignored, too. Two visits from Blake. And one call from Hotchner.

_Take the time you need. We’re there for you anytime._

In these twelve days he had slept less then sixty hours, no more than three hours at once. He was unable to sleep. He couldn’t. He didn’t dare to. Because whenever he closed his eyes all he saw was Maeve, Maeve and Diane, and Diane pulling the trigger. A hundred and four seconds had passed between the moment when Diane realized she couldn’t have what Maeve and he had had and the ultimately silencing pistol noise.

He relived that moment again and again. A hundred and four seconds of hope. A hundred and four endless seconds of horrible irrational hope that this would somehow magically turn out well against all odds. A hundred and four seconds of hope, followed by endless horror. The feeling of horror had manifested around him in a way that overshadowed the hope he was forced to feel again and again every time he closed his eyes, so that eventually hope was the most terrifying feeling he knew.

He sat on the floor in front of his couch, unwashed, same cloths for days straight, dark circles around his eyes and his lungs and his heart. He stared into the void and counted, counted from one to a hundred and four, again, and again, and again. A hundred and four. Why didn’t she shoot him instead? A hundred and four. He’d offered it. A hundred and four. He begged for it. A hundred and four. It would have made sense. Justice. Why was Maeve dead and he the one alive? Being shot in that loft, twelve days nine hours and fifty five minutes ago wouldn’t have made any difference. It wouldn’t have felt any different than this.

The phone rang. Again. He didn’t even look up anymore. He didn’t shrink. He didn’t care.

“This is Spencer Reid, please leave a message.”

Beep.

“Hey kid, it’s Morgan, again.”

The tenth call.

“Garcia’s worried about you. We all are. Give us a call, okay?”

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. How should he?

Two knocks. That was all that he’d been communicating with his friends in the last twelve days.

When JJ and Garcia tried to visit him the last time, four days ago, standing in front of his door not only ten inches separated from him through one inch of wood. He’d sat on the floor leaned against that door, arm length away from them but it had felt like whole continents between them. Worlds, actually. There was no way for him to measure how lost he felt, how far-off from his friends and everyone else in this world. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t talk. But even if he could, he didn’t want to.

“It’s okay, Spence. Just know twice if you’re – just knock twice, please.” If you‘re okay, that’s what JJ wanted to say. He appreciated that she didn’t. Cause he wasn’t. But he knew he owed them any kind of reaction. He owed them the lie of being okay. Of getting along. So he had knocked. Twice.

That was four days ago. Nothing had changed. He still counted. Counted to a hundred and four.

_Stop it, Spencer._

Maeves voice was soft, so soft, sad, and tender, and he was both so desperate to hear her and too terrified to.

“I can’t.” His voice was hardly more than some hoarse feeble whisper.

He couldn’t.

_Spencer._

Her silent beg made him close his eyes. There she was again. Looking at him. Pistol pressed against her head.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

He forced himself to stop and open his eyes.

Tiredly he reached for the book right next to him. Maeves book, that she’d accorded him when they hadn’t met at the restaurant. The Narrative of John Smith. One hundred and twenty pages of finest late nineteenth century literature. He hadn’t dared to read a single one of them yet.

His fingers followed the lines on the cover, tenderly tracing every single one of them, before he finally opened the first page.

_Love is our true destiny._

She had written that, for him, in there. He felt tears burning in his eyes. Tears that he thought he’d spent the last one already days ago, but there was no end of them and he was sure there wouldn’t be any end ever.

_We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone._

He had been looking for it for so very long. Meaning of life. Whatever that was. He had been looking for answers, answers to why he was denied what everyone else had, whatever that was.

Love. Whatever that was.

The only possible answer he’d been able to think of was that it was him. He was just too strange. Too wrong.

And when he had finally been able to make peace with it, with knowing it was him, and with trying to come to terms with it being okay, there had been Maeve. He had sent her his MRT-scan for the everlasting pain he’d been in, and she had answered. And eventually he had understood: she was the answer. The reason why. The meaning. Fate had had him waiting, waiting for her, so that he would not miss her.

Because she was his meaning.

_We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone; we find it with another._

Thomas Merton was right. Maeve had been his meaning. He had found answers in her, with her. Even though they hadn’t seen each other a single time in ten months, ten months and six days, even though he hadn’t known how she looked like for ten months and six days, and even though they had met just once then, he knew he loved her. He still did. He would always do. She had not been his meaning, she still was.

Life had one meaning. Just one. Not two. Not more. Just one. And his meaning had been taken away from him, irrevocably.

He didn’t know how many days he would still need to sit here, like this, unwashed, same cloths for days, bloodshot eyes and a hole where his heart once was. He did not know how much time he would need to be able to continue living again. How many more calls he would need to finally answer one. How many text messages had to pass until he texted back. How many more visits that he could not let in.

But he knew: he would never love someone like he loved Maeve.

Life would go on, eventually.

But his life would always be deprived of meaning.

He crawled back on the couch, embosoming Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as if he was all he had left of Maeve. He closed his eyes and started counting.

There was just one meaning of life.

One.

Never more.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this little insight. If you did, please consider leaving a (any kind of) comment. ^.^ That'd be highly appreciated!


End file.
